I lost ALL my music and ALL my Williams research!

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Long story short: Needed to format my computer. My external HD with the backup data fell to the floor (and was ruined) before I could finish re-installing, and before I could transfer any of my digital music (about 1600 albums worth). Including the Williams research documents and rare films/TV shows that were all stored in the John Williams folder.

It's all been rather depressing, but in the following weeks I might need help from some of you hardcore JW researchers that I've received various data from in the last 5-6 years, to re-acquire some of this. Just as a heads-up. Thanks!

First things first: Where is the thread with links to all those JW interviews over the years? I can't seem to find it in the search engine.

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Oh wow, that really sucks. If you haven't done much with the computer's drive after formatting, there's a good chance even freeware software with maybe a lite license (or cracked) could bring at least some of the data back - a lot of it's gonna be already overwritten with system stuff though. I've recovered half my movie collection when I absentmindedly just pulled my portable HDD out and had to reformat it. Since then, I only take it out when the laptop is turned off.

My digital and CD collection are separate (except for archival rips of every CD I own, but what I listen to digitally is always edited in some form, so it's not the same), but the digital is kept simultaneously on my external HDD, my phone's SD card, my tablet's SD card, and on a cloud drive. Only an electric storm or the reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles could take all of these away simultaneously.

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Since it's the computer hard drive, the system has already overwritten a lot, and every single new file will too, so I'd hurry with a try to be able to save as much as possible. Don't know exactly how the external one is ruined, if it's a hardware failure, it probably won't be fixed at home.

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My digital and CD collection are separate (except for archival rips of every CD I own, but what I listen to digitally is always edited in some form, so it's not the same), but the digital is kept simultaneously on my external HDD, my phone's SD card, my tablet's SD card, and on a cloud drive. Only an electric storm or the reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles could take all of these away simultaneously.

Yeah. Everything on my Mac, including my iTunes music library (lossy) gets backed up to Time Capsule every day. Then I have my archival lossless music files on a separate HD, which is backed up to the cloud. And I have my movies on another HD which has a physical backup (too massive to back up to the cloud).

I'm playing with fire though. My Mac stopped recognising my Time Capsule a few weeks ago, so no backups since then and I can’t be bothered to sort it yet.

4 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Is it normal for a drive to crash after just hitting the floor?

Very normal, depending on how hard the hit was. And Norwegian's love their hard wood floors.

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Yeah. Everything on my Mac, including my iTunes music library (lossy) gets backed up to Time Capsule every day. Then I have my archival lossless music files on a separate HD, which is backed up to the cloud. And I have my movies on another HD which has a physical backup (too massive to back up to the cloud).

Im playing with fire though. My Mac stopped recognising my Time Capsule a few weeks ago, so no backups since then and I can’t be bothered to sort it yet.

Very normal, depending on how hard the hit was. And Norwegians love their hard wood floors.

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I accidentally erased my drive containing my lossless music backups, and was able to retrieve 95% of it using a program called Disc Drill. So you might want to give that a go.

I wouldn’t give up just yet.

Thanks for the suggestion. I checked it out on Wikipedia, but apparently, it only works if it's been pre-stored in certain formats?: "The core of Disk Drill Basic[6]is a Recovery Vault[7]technology which allows to recover data from a media that was secured by Recovery Vault beforehand."

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Thanks for the suggestion. I checked it out on Wikipedia, but apparently, it only works if it's been pre-stored in certain formats?: "The core of Disk Drill Basic[6]is a Recovery Vault[7]technology which allows to recover data from a media that was secured by Recovery Vault beforehand."

I've not secured anything with Recovery Vault beforehand.

If you plan to use a recovery software on your PC hard drive, you'll be able to recover more data if you stop using the PC until performing the recovery. The best would be to take the disc out and connect it as an external drive to another PC to do the recovery.

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Thanks for the suggestion. I checked it out on Wikipedia, but apparently, it only works if it's been pre-stored in certain formats?: "The core of Disk Drill Basic[6]is a Recovery Vault[7]technology which allows to recover data from a media that was secured by Recovery Vault beforehand."

I've not secured anything with Recovery Vault beforehand.

The "recovery vault"in Disk Drill is an added feature for existing users that just provides extra protection in recovering deleted files. It's not necessary for the program to work (I never used it).

When my hard drive crashed, I just ran the program and it recovered the vast majority of my FLAC and ALAC files. In a few cases, some of the recovered file names were somewhat mangled, and depending on how much work the program has to do, it can take a while to run, but in my case it worked. Your case may be a little different in that it sounds like you have physical damage, but it might be worth a try. If I recall it even allows you to search and prioritise recovery for specific file types..i.e. .mp4, .mp3, .doc, etc.

7 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

If you plan to use a recovery software on your PC hard drive, you'll be able to recover more data if you stop using the PC until performing the recovery. The best would be to take the disc out and connect it as an external drive to another PC to do the recovery.

Yes, to Jurassic Shark you listen. Stop using that hard drive immediately if you haven't already done so.

You didn't say exactly what kind of damage occurred, just that it was "ruined". Does you computer recognise the drive at all?

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When my hard drive crashed, I just ran the program and it recovered the vast majority of my FLAC and ALAC files. In a few cases. Your case may be a little different in that it sounds like you have physical damage, but it might be worth a try.

We're talking about two drives here - the external one which is damaged and not possible to access, and the PC drive which has been formatted and where files could be recovered by using recovery SW.

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Well, we don't know the extent of the damage - it could be one misaligned contact, a broken reading mechanism, or a completely broken disc. If it's the first one, even a good whack or another drop could help, if it's the last one, anything will be useless.

And yes, if he hasn't filled half the hard drive after the formatting and OS reinstallation happened in the PC one, a good percentage should be able to be recovered.

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Repairing a slipped disc is no easy fix. It can be an ordeal for the patient, and there's no guarantee that the pain will end after a risky fusion surgery. Many patients however report improvement after several months or even years of exercising the core muscles, and eventually the herniation heals.

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I am a mac user use iCloud for a lot of things, which results in an online backup. Also, I do a Time Machine Backup of my main computer every day, maybe try that in the future when you've got all your stuff back!

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It is too late for the PC. Installed most of the programs, all documents, hundreds of windows updates and so on before the accident. The music folder was more or less the last thing I needed to transfer.

The external HDD won’t register/be read on the computer. That’s the issue. I’m guessing the ‘read nodes’(?) were damaged in the fall.

Much of the music I might be able to replace, even if it will take a long time. It is the Williams research and rare material that hurt the most.

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It is too late for the PC. Installed most of the programs, all documents, hundreds of windows updates and so on before the accident. The music folder was more or less the last thing I needed to transfer.

The external HDD won’t register/be read on the computer. That’s the issue. I’m guessing the ‘read nodes’(?) were damaged in the fall.

Much of the music I might be able to replace, even if it will take a long time. It is the Williams research and rare material that hurt the most.

I guess you have most of your music on iTunes anyway.

Since you're not planning to hand the disc over to professionals you could open it up yourself to see if there's any obvious faults. You'll probably find many tutorials on YouTube.

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Since you're not planning to hand the disc over to professionals you could open it up yourself to see if there's any obvious faults. You'll probably find many tutorials on YouTube.

No, actually I've bought very little from iTunes over the years. Most of the big loss in recent years comes from digital IFMCA promos (many of them unreleased). I hope to get my IFMCA colleagues to help with that.

I could pry it open, yes, but I think I'm just going to store it for now -- in the hope that I find someone a bit more professional who can help me down the line. Without the cost. You never know.

[btw, I do apologize for posting this in the 'General Discussions' area, as it might not be entirely on-topic, but I wanted some exposure for the help I'm going to need in the coming months]

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I recommend not opening the hard drive unless you are absolutely sure you know what you're doing. Are you an engineer? Do you have a clean room to prevent dust from entering and contaminating the platters? It's one thing if you can find a video or document that says the problem is likely a loose cable inside that you can reseat. But if the drop damaged the motor or dislodged an arm or the sensor, you may be damaging a repairable drive into a higher price range.

I had an internal hard drive fail over ten years ago from a power surge from not using a surge strip. I thought I could replace the controller circuit board and keep going. I never actually tried to find the exact make and model of drive to do the repair though.

But basically, if all your valuable data is on only one external hard drive, then that's not a backup. That's your primary storage. You always need another external drive in a safe place that you don't use, to prevent disasters like this.

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Thankfully, I have a lot of information stored in my head in regard to the Williams research. But it's everything at once; I miss my more structured documents with quotes, the film files etc. etc. -- everything that was supposed to go in my book.

I hope this has been a reminder to everyone that you need to back up your stuff at least TWO places. Not just one, like me. I've gone on a drinking binge now, to drown out some of the downbeat mood -- and I try to remind myself that it's "just" music files. I still have my CDs.

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So incredibly sorry to hear of this news, Thor! I know you've been collecting Williams info for quite some time and are headed towards coalescing that into a book at some point. I would take the suggestions in this thread very seriously and pursue them to see what can be retrieved. In moving forward, I would also add that, when working on extended projects that require many sittings working on the same file, I would recommend saving it using a different version each time. I was once working on a very important essay that I was constantly saving over the same file. When I saved it once, the computer crashed in the middle of it, corrupting the file and making it unreadable. Fortunately, I had a tech guru who was able to salvage most of it and I managed to reconstruct the blanks from memory. After that, I became vigilant about making backups, both through different versions of individual files and through having multiple storage devices, especially with one on the cloud, which doesn't take up much space for written documents. I know you've lost a lot here, and I'm so, so sorry. I just want to add some things that may help in going forward.

Best wishes in retrieving all your collected data, my friend!

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Yeah, thanks, I know. I've certainly learned my lesson in several ways in the last couple of days. This -- in the scheme of things "minor" thing -- was just the 'tip of the iceberg' for a number of diffcult things in my life, so I had a bit of breakdown tonight. But I think I can gradually build things back to normal. I'm confident I will retrieve all the music and all the Williams information over the course of time -- through help from you guys, among others.

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Reading about this sort of personal disaster is why I'm considering getting my film music collection into the cloud (as an additional though not primary or even secondary backup).

It's all fine and well if one still has the physical media stashed away, but consider the effort and time involved in getting all that music ripped again, searching for suitable cover art and fixing the metadata. And if you're MV Gerard, that's not even an option.

Could one hypothetically give Thor access to one's cloud account to download all the music (yes, obviously his collection is unique but perhaps he could pick the stuff he wants, possibly from a few users' collections)?

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Long story short: Needed to format my computer. My external HD with the backup data fell to the floor (and was ruined) before I could finish re-installing, and before I could transfer any of my digital music (about 1600 albums worth). Including the Williams research documents and rare films/TV shows that were all stored in the John Williams folder.

It's all been rather depressing, but in the following weeks I might need help from some of you hardcore JW researchers that I've received various data from in the last 5-6 years, to re-acquire some of this. Just as a heads-up. Thanks!

First things first: Where is the thread with links to all those JW interviews over the years? I can't seem to find it in the search engine.

Why didnt you have your data and music backed up to more than one drive?